Is something getting shorted here?

[Anonymous Joe]

I've built a PC out of working parts. Sometimes it boots, but most of the
time it doesn't.

I've tried chaning a lot of things, such as chaning around the RAM, removing
everything except video & 1 DIMM (I have 3), changing the BIOS battery,
removing screws that hold the motherboard onto the case, and fiddling around
with all those switch & LED connections.

There isn't one single thing I can find wrong with it. I got it to boot 3
or 4 times in a row, which was pretty good, but I don't think I did anything
more than push in the ATX plug a little harder. The heatsink is getting in
the way, just a little, it causes one side of the plug to be raised up about
0.5-1.0mm from flush.

I removed and rescrewed in 2 of the screws on the motherboard, and it did
boot once, but then not again, so I'm not sure if something is getting
shorted here or not.

When it was able to boot up properly, I found that the CPU was at 27C, and
the case was at 21C. It is an Athlon 900, with 320MB RAM (128/128/64), ATI
Radeon 7000, 300W PSU that's worked for ~3 years without problems, Abit
KT7-RAID, cheap CompUSA case.

For what it's worth, I added a 15 ohm resistor to the +12V line on the fan
in the PSU. The fan starts reliably and seems to be blowing a fair amount
of air. There is no grill on it, other than the 3 plastic bars built into
the fan itself, so it shouldn't have any resistance blowing air out. It was
originally a 33CFM fan, 0.19A. It should be receiving 9.15V instead of 12V,
if I understand the electronics right....

 

[Triffid]

I've built a PC out of working parts. Sometimes it boots, but most of the
time it doesn't.

I've tried chaning a lot of things, such as chaning around the RAM, removing
everything except video & 1 DIMM (I have 3), changing the BIOS battery,
removing screws that hold the motherboard onto the case, and fiddling around
with all those switch & LED connections.

There isn't one single thing I can find wrong with it. I got it to boot 3
or 4 times in a row, which was pretty good, but I don't think I did anything
more than push in the ATX plug a little harder. The heatsink is getting in
the way, just a little, it causes one side of the plug to be raised up about
0.5-1.0mm from flush.

I removed and rescrewed in 2 of the screws on the motherboard, and it did
boot once, but then not again, so I'm not sure if something is getting
shorted here or not.

Certainly sounds like a strong possibility. Why not take the board out
of the case and try it on the bench?

 

[Anonymous Joe]

Certainly sounds like a strong possibility. Why not take the board out
of the case and try it on the bench?

I will try that....it's just rather hard to line up the holes because of the
case

 

[chrisv]

I will try that....it's just rather hard to line up the holes because of the
case

Can't any of you clueless Outhouse Express users figure out how to
configure a newsreader so it doesn't mangle quotes?

 

[KR Williams]

Can't any of you clueless Outhouse Express users figure out how to
configure a newsreader so it doesn't mangle quotes?

Well, does it answer your question by stating the obvious? They
*are* using OE. ;-)

 

[KCB]

Can't any of you clueless Outhouse Express users figure out how to
configure a newsreader so it doesn't mangle quotes?

Is that the biggest problem you could find to whine about today?
Maybe he got abused by "advanced" users for top-posting during
childhood, and now everything goes on the bottom. Or maybe, just
maybe, he thought your ISP would let you see the entire thread so you
could follow along with the group. What a way to discourage posts you
OE-phobic, holier-than-thou ASS.